GOP Rep.: Gunwalking report helps restore faith

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., hears from Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department's internal watchdog, on Capitol Hill in Washington Sept. 20, 2012. / AP Photo

Updated at 3:22 p.m. ET

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - A Republican House committee chairman said Thursday that a watchdog report on a bungled gun-trafficking probe in Arizona is a huge step toward restoring public faith in the Justice Department.

Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee praised the findings of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who faulted the agency for misguided strategies, errors in judgment and management failures in an operation that he said disregarded public safety and allowed hundreds of guns to reach Mexican drug gangs.

"There needs to be supervision; there needs to be oversight," and law enforcement operations like Fast and Furious need to be referred at the start to "the highest levels" of the department, Horowitz testified. His report faulted mid-level and senior officials for not briefing Attorney General Eric Holder much earlier.

The report proves "to both sides of the aisle that you could" do the job of looking into the facts of Operation Fast and Furious, "and I want to personally thank you," Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., told Horowitz.

It was the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry that sparked the outcry over investigative tactics of the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Terry was gunned down by illegal immigrants in December 2010, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. Two AK-47-type rifles from Fast and Furious were found at the scene.

Operation Fast and Furious involved "gun-walking," an experimental tactic barred under longstanding department policy. ATF agents in Arizona allowed suspected straw purchasers to leave Phoenix-area gun stores with weapons in order to track them and bring charges against gun-smuggling kingpins who long had eluded prosecution, but they lost track of most of the guns.

ATF whistleblower John Dodson told CBS News he and his colleagues had been ordered to let thousands of guns fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels -- including .50-caliber rifles -- in a strategy to see if they would lead investigators to a drug kingpin, Attkisson reports.

(Watch at left Attkisson's report)

In Fast and Furious alone, ATF allowed 2,000 weapons to be purchased by suspects -- yet there were no arrests or indictments until Terry was killed, Attkisson reports.

About 1,400 of the total have yet to be recovered.

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Second arrest in "Fast and Furious" killing

The inspector general was walking a fine political line between vociferous Republican criticisms of the operation begun during the Obama administration and Democratic defenses of Holder.

"We found no evidence that the attorney general was aware" of Operation Fast and Furious or the much-disputed gun-walking tactic associated with it, Horowitz told Democratic delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia.

House Republicans see the IG's report as vindication because it criticizes one of their favorite targets: Holder's Justice Department.

Issa has maintained for months that affidavits in still-sealed wiretap applications in Operation Fast and Furious could have tipped off Justice Department lawyers that agents were using the risky tactic called gun-walking, which was at the heart of the controversy and led to hundreds of illicitly acquired guns being recovered from crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico. Horowitz agreed with Issa.

"You would read these ... affidavits and see many red flags, in our view," said Horowitz. "We interviewed three of the five" lawyers who reviewed the 14 wiretap applications, and "all three indicated that they did not routinely read the affidavits when they came to them."

Democrats have suggested there is nothing in the applications that would have caused senior officials to see any red flags.

While critical, the IG's report knocks down some of the many accusations Republicans have made about the Obama administration during their year-and-a-half-long investigation of the ATF operation.

"We found no evidence" that staff at the department or at ATF informed the attorney general about Operation Fast and Furious before 2011, the report says. The operation begin in Phoenix in late 2009.

Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler received a briefing on Operation Fast and Furious in 2010.

"We found, however, that the briefing failed to alert Grindler to problems in the investigation," the report says.

"We found no evidence to suggest" that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, was aware that the ATF and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona had adopted a strategy of not interdicting firearms, the report adds.

Still, the inspector general's report provided some validation for the Republican-led investigation.

The inspector general referred 14 people for possible department disciplinary action in Operation Fast and Furious and a separate, earlier probe known as Wide Receiver, undertaken during the George W. Bush administration — Grindler, Breuer and two other people from the Justice Department, four from ATF headquarters, four at ATF in Phoenix and two from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix.

A former head of the ATF, Kenneth Melson, and a deputy assistant attorney general in Justice's criminal division in Washington, Jason Weinstein, left the department upon the report's release Wednesday — the first by retirement, the second by resignation.

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[model67a]

Even if the people found to be responsible for F&F are convicted , Obama will set them free just as Holder did the Black Panthers for the intimidation at the voting polls.

[tsigili]

Not really. Holder walks away scott free.

[koko98-2009]

Holder cleared. You would not know that if you followed the story on Fox Noise.

[Protricity]

correct. it was a major failure by the justice department. the higher-ups should always take responsibility for the actions of the rank and file, even when they aren't aware it was happening. absolutely.
a coverup/conspiracy/scandal this is not.
it is what it is, and it isnt what it isnt. It is impossible at this point to make any factual case for why Eric Holder was held in contempt by the House without relying on your 'gut feeling' that the Obama administration is corrupt and this is all a major conspiracy.
It all comes down to one question: How many more years and dollars is the Federal GOP going to waste with this bs?
The last 3 years have been one massive, unnecessary, damaging, and expensive waste of time and resources.
And They have absolutely nothing to show for it.

[Montana5]

Quit the hand-wringing! Congress has been told repeatedly since the 10970s of the incompetence of ATF and the failure of its management to effectively supervise its agents. Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian debacle began as ill-advised ATF actions. Recommendations were made to Congress at on three occasions to fold this superfluous agency into the FBI or just disband it entirely. Congress refused to act.
And now we get Fast and Furious, the ultimate failure of ATF management. Congress is to blame....they never had the courage to pull the plug on this inept agency and reassign its limited responsibilities.

[cubscout09]

Gunwalking was wrong, a great sounding enforcement strategy that ran immediately afoul of Second Amendment Rights and Arizona State Laws. Gunwalking should have been discontinued immediately, when this conflict became apparent. That being said, what are we doing or what are we going to do about the straw buyer problem?

In perspective, the 2,000 or so weapons that were "walked" represent the high estimate for the average number of weapons that cross our border into Mexico, every single day!

[ppaulville]

"We found no evidence that the attorney general was aware of Operation Fast and Furious or the much-disputed gun-walking tactic associated with it..." Good Lord, are there really people who think that Holder's ignorance (which is a complete load, btw) about the sale of thousands of weapons to drug cartels is a GOOD thing?!?!

If he knew what was happening, he should be in prison. If he didn't know that HIS operatives were running a rogue operation which encompassed dozens of field officers and supervisors, thousands of weapons and placed many civilians at risk (both on the buy and sell sides), then he should be fired for absolute and total incompetence.

[DanielSanDiego]

Now maybe Issa can get to work and earn the money we taxpayers are paying him for life on matters like the economy and jobs. What a waste of human flesh.

[bradkt1]

There were plenty of reasons to criticize and investigate Fast and Furious and Wide Receiver, the two gunwalking operations that went south...both literally and figuratively.

What Congress did, however, was to launch and conduct a totally politically slanted investigation that was only focused on what happened during the Obama Administration...with an eye toward embarassing and ultimately claiming the scalp of Attorney General Eric Holder. Now I am no fan of Eric Holder. I think that he is President Obama's worst appointment, but in the end, Congress accomplished little, if anything. Once again, Congress was so about partisan gamesmenship that they lost sight of the fundamental difference between right and wrong.

Having worked with Agency IGs over the years, I know that they have a record of thorough and nonpartisan work in the Executive Branch that is usually respected by both major parties. This investigation was in keeping with that tradition, despite it being conducted under the most difficult of political circumstances.

For the life of me, I will never understand how anyone with common sense, a sense of basic civil responsibility and a conscience could allow the quantity and type of firearms involved in these two ill-fated gunwalking operations to fall into the hands of these murderous drug cartels. This was never a good idea in the first place.

I don't think that we will ever learn the entire story, but I sense the strong smell of bribery and corruption.

[parrot2-2009]

No republicans commenting on this article ?? What - Scared ??